A place for thoughtful, truly intersectional Feminist discussion.

How queer communities harm lesbians

It took me a long time to hear about any of this. Queer theory is now so entrenched in everything that no one realizes how misogynistic it is – and how it is based in nothing but academic theory. It isn’t based on observed structural reality, like true feminism, it is just a bunch a post-modernist, deconstructionist rhetoric.

13 thoughts on “How queer communities harm lesbians”

I just don’t understand how we got to this point. (Though I remember that flat-earth societies are a thing so nothing should surprise me.) The whole thing is misogynistic, homophobic and mind-bogglingly stupid. It’s like they’ve used Alice in Wonderland, 1984, Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale as manifestos and created this smoke-and-mirrors theory where material reality is determined by what’s going on in your mind. Unless you’re a woman of course, in which case you don’t get your own narrative of your own and you don’t get to talk about your body and experiences. It’s very clearly a reaction to the gains made by the women’s and gay liberation movements. It baffles me that so many people fail to see it.

Though it definitely feels like more people are speaking out against it. I’ve said this on a number of occasions but I think we’re finally reaching the point where people are saying enough is enough. Fingers crossed.

I know someone who goes to “queer” bars and wonders if all her friends who are becoming transmen are doing it as part of a social trend. She also recognizes issues specific to women, but still couldn’t seem to be able to drop the mantra “transwomen were always women” and that they are the most persecuted “women” – as opposed to persecuted men. I think that it is hard to deny transwomen the indulgence that they are literal women because of the socialization of liberal women as both women and liberals. To deny transactivism is to go against both the liberal creed of acceptance and the female socialization of being nice. To suddenly say that transwomen aren’t women also risks alienating a social group in which one has become familier. It also doesn’t help that alt-right assholes such as Milo Y. are saying the truth – that transwomen who insist they be thought of as literal women are confused men; no liberal wants to be in agreement with anything Milo says. And then there is the whole thing where you can’t deny someone’s lived reality. Take Janet Mock, whose lived reality according to himself is that he was born as a girl and was a woman in a man’s body until he “became a woman” – not that he was in fact a gay boy who couldn’t live up to male socialization, eliciting the disapproval of her father, and that this was so traumatic he decided he was a girl. I also believe individuals like Janet are happy – or supposedly happy – because if they are seen as a successful, feminine woman they don’t have to deal with being a failed gay man (in society’s mind). It is happiness in denial, and it doesn’t mean transitioning is a productive means to deal with rigid gender roles. Anyway, I digress. The fact of the matter is that lesbians were always second-class in the LGB movement and thus very easy to suppress as the queer movement came to power.

Yes, I think you’re spot on when it comes to liberal feminists. I suspect fear of reprisals also plays a part, as does the obfuscation brought about by meaningless language. Having spoken to a few women about these issues, the lack of awareness about what “transgender woman” means is also key: women in general believe that we’re talking about post-op transsexuals. Once they realise the truth women who were supportive usually change their mind pretty quickly. I try to think where I would stand if I was younger. If such ideas had been around when I was growing up I have no doubt that people would have ended up labelling me trans. As a young woman I doubt my position on the subject would be what it is now. But I think the excess of recent events, such as pussy hats being banned for being exclusionary, is leading to more women speaking up. We’re not there yet but it’s getting harder for trans activists to maintain their house of cards.

Your point about Milo is interesting. Trans activists capitalise on this, conflating conservative bigotry with the radical feminist analysis of gender. They know this works because of what happens the abolitionist movement: be critical of the sex industry and you’ll end up being labelled a prude or whorephobe. This means people will automatically dismiss you, as they do when you’re labelled transphobic or TERF. That trans activists have managed to distort the discourse so much is, in a twisted way, quite impressive. The fact that we’re critical of the conservative position, which contributes to the dysphoria experienced by some people, gets lost in all this.

The situation for lesbians is dire. I’m glad I’m too old to be a victim of trans ideology, though it’s difficult to meet new lesbians (I moved recently) because lesbian spaces no longer exist. Within and without queer communities lesbians are at a disadvantage and are often ignored, which has made us the perfect targets. Plenty of trans allies shame us for our orientation so I’m not surprised many lesbians end up transitioning. I can’t wait for it all to end.

It’s funny, I never thought of being critical of gender as “radical.” I thought of it as a basic tenet of feminism. Shows how much mainstream feminism has changed (for the worse). And when women think of postop transwomen they think of gay men who became women, not the Fallon Foxes of the world.

True that. And it is weird: I’ve seen Marxist/socialist feminists support gender identity ideology at the expense of sex-based protections, which makes no sense in the context of their philosophy. It’s baffling to see neo-liberal ideology make such gains. I tend to be cautious but you have to wonder how much of this is being engineered to maintain the status quo, in a way similar to climate denial (manufacturing doubt and confusion, cherry picking, etc.). I know this might be entering conspiracy ideation territory but after seeing attempts by some to include P for paedosexual in the LGBT alphabet soup (apparently K for kink is being added by some), I’m really starting to think something’s not right.

Totally agree with this and what purple barnacle said too. I’ve felt this very much so. All canons by definition seem to be exclusionary. I’ve never felt part of ” my” community and yet, if I can’t, who does ?

It really is tough going at the moment. At times I don’t know where, or even if, I belong, though taking myself off Twitter has had a positive impact. I have to focus on other things to keep me going, and the project I’m involved with at the moment is giving me some breathing space. But surely it shouldn’t be this way. What a mess.

You said it. Surely it should not be this way. It’s dispiriting when the VERY people you believe should have your back, do not. But, even if it’s not wide spread, there are those out there that continue to give us hope. We’re not alone. It’s just easier for some to lose their way. And hard to be a truth seeker but that’s what I want to be and what you are.

It is disheartening to see organisations like Stonewall UK use language such as TERF when talking about lesbians who won’t date males, for obvious reasons. And to see them define homosexual as being attracted to people of the same gender, rather than sex. This is incompatible with the LGB part of LGBT and puts us in an impossible situation, excluding us from our own movement. Thankfully there are many people out there fighting this and as you say, this can give us hope and the courage to keep going.

One thing that many people forget is that among younger lesbians, many (a large majority even) doesn’t really buy into the whole queer or trans things. It’s just that they would rather not mention it for fear of social exclusion.

It seems to vary quite a lot and I think, in my case at least, I know my perception can be skewed by what I read online. Social media is clearly a problem, but for those who don’t really use it, there are signs that young people are turning away from the whole gender identity malarkey. Fingers crossed.

In my undergraduate and postgraduate studies, I was disgusted by gender studies. The radical stance was promoted. You had to take on a Marxist or Constructivist position on gender. If you chose a different stance, you were taken as being too soft on gender issues.Even, the academic narrative speaks of a particular understanding of womanhood. It was hard to think about women or lesbians in a different manner. Therefore, I chose to remain closeted even in voicing an opinion on gender in my writing as a budding scholar. You pick your fights or get isolated in academia too.